…Shop Alone

Shopping: For some it’s a pastime. Others view the event as a competitive sport. In an effort to shield themselves from all social interaction, a few sad souls avoid shopping whenever possible. Their excuses are embarrassing. They’ll fake illness, pretend they suffered a sudden bout of amnesia, or in a pinch claim they’re “slammed!” at work — lame excuses for why they can’t join you for a shopping excursion or worse, why they didn’t buy you (or anyone else in the family!) a Christmas gift. Then the few & the proud actually take shopping to a professional level and make it their job. (honestly, this one appeals to me a bit, though I can’t say exactly why…)

Most of us who spend any time at all in the cyberworld have of course become cyber shoppers. It’s so easy. Click. Click. Click. Buy buy buy. Spend spend spend. Telling your money, “bye, ‘bye, ‘bye” has never been easier. The anti-social amongst us must be greatly relieved. No longer do they have to manufacture a cough or work 7 days a week. They can slip on their after-work sweatpants and go to the cyber mall. Whew! Once again, presents for everyone.

I’ll admit, I love the ease of amazon.com. We buy our incandescent light bulbs from retailers on amazon. Our dog’s crate came via the same method. And don’t even get me started on singing the praises of buying books, movies, cds. Couldn’t be more convenient. But some things should probably not be purchased online. Say, for instance, a dress for your son’s wedding.

I can only conclude that facing the fact of my baby’s upcoming marriage triggered my brief bout of insanity. Mind you, I didn’t search the amazon.com website for a mother-of-the-groom dress. (I guess I retained a modicum of sense.) But I did browse the major department stores’ websites. And after many hours of click, click, click, I found a dress that I absolutely loved. A couple more clicks and it was on its way to my front door. Remember. I LOVED it. Right up until it arrived at my front door and I dropped everything to try it on. To say that it, and I, looked hideous would be a kindness. Hideous will suffice.

My stupidity, unfortunately, did not end there.

A nice thing about shopping the online version of a department store that also anchors a nearby mall is this: No return shipping fee. Off to the store I went. Conveniently, one of the groomsmen (another son!) and their dad (my hubby) tagged along. Something about buying the suits the bride and groom had selected for the big day. After I’d made my easy-peasy return, I decided to indulge myself with a bit of in-store browsing (what a novelty!). Disaster was written across my forehead, but I didn’t know it at the time. Nope. Not I. I was blinded by a vision of such mother-of-the-groom-dress loveliness that, before I knew what I was doing, I’d tried it on, twirled about in the dressing room, and purchased the thing. Ta-DA!

I needed someone to say “Ta-Don’t!” is the thing.

I took that dress home. Showed it to nearly everyone — husband, daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law to be (aka the bride). Heck, I took a picture of it and sent to several others who might have an opinion. What I never did, though, was try the dang thing on so that someone — ANYONE! could say, ‘whoa, whoa, whoa.’ TIME OUT. You’re wearing THAT!??!?”

We see our daughter-in-law to be for the first time!

See, this is why friends don’t let friends shop alone. Because, under no circumstances should a mother-of-the-groom look like she’s carrying around a sack of potatoes (even if she is, figuratively speaking, carrying around a sack of potatoes). Sure, sure, no one could ever upstage this beauty hugging her dad-in-law. Still. The mother-of-the-groom would do well to, you know, get a second opinion when buying the dress that identifies her as the ‘mother-of-the-groom.’ Because LOTS of pictures are snapped on wedding days.

For this reason alone, I repeat: Friends don’t let friends shop alone: not online; not for important purchases like major appliances or furniture upgrades; not for swimwear; not for pillows, laundry detergent or prime rib. Most especially, friends don’t let friends shop for once-in-a-lifetime dresses alone. Disaster can strike at any moment, friends. One minute you’re returning an online purchase. The next you’re twirling in a dressing room, imagining the mother-groom dance, and then, ‘buy, buy, buy.’

Honored to be…

Recent Posts: Common Chapters: life changes

Quitting. We’ve made it into such an ugly word, and really, the ‘throw the hands up in the air and hissing “I’m OUT!‘ version does raise the hackles. No one ever liked the kid who actually did gather up all his marbles to go home. It’s hard to cheer for the horse who balks at […]

Late last week I looked at the calendar and recognized the soon arrival of March 19. The day was coming, and coming without any fanfare. It would be the eighth time the day would come as a marker, urging me to remember my mother and her passing. Eight years. In all earnestness I ask: where […]

These men – crusty on the outside, but tender and charitable and endlessly endearing – have been, and remain, the steady anchors of my world. How fitting then, to find reminders of them in other chapters…

When I was seven years old, my brother left home for Vietnam. Before he left, our mom made sure the requisite photo marking the occasion was taken. In the photo: a young girl who lacked the faintest clue what ‘going to Vietnam’ actually meant; our maternal grandmother, long gray hair in her requisite bun; my […]

By the mid-point of the first quarter of a new school year, presumably all of the principal characters in the production called ‘high school’ know their lines, “their exits and entrances,”; the tryouts now completed, all have gotten used to “play[ing their] many parts.” ( I keep telling my students, and anyone else who forgets […]